Get an authentic view of academic underachievement, apathy, and rage among America’s Black and Hispanic youth. Through a deeper understanding of the cultural backgrounds of these students, you’ll learn powerful strategies to deal with discipline problems, as well as strategies for keeping parents involved. Become an empowered Merchant of Hope armed with positive strategies for reaching these students.

Learn to overcome trauma, adversity, and struggle by unleashing the science of hope in your daily life with this inspiring and informative guide. Hope is much more than wishful thinking. Science tells us that it is the most predictive indicator of well-being in a person’s life. Hope is measurable. It is malleable. And it changes lives. In Hope Rising, Casey Gwinn and Chan Hellman reveal the latest science of hope using nearly 2,000 published studies, including their own research. Based on their findings, they make an impassioned call for hope to be the focus not only of our personal lives, but of public policy for education, business, social services, and every part of society. Hope Rising provides a roadmap to measure hope in your life. It teaches you to assess what may have robbed you of hope, and then provides strategies to let your hope flourish once again. The authors challenge every reader to be honest about their own struggles and end the cycle of shame and blame related to trauma, illness, and abuse. These are important first steps toward increasing your Hope score—and thriving because of it.

Research demonstrates that children of poverty need more than just academic instruction to succeed. Discover a blueprint for turning low-performing schools into Cultures of Hope! The authors draw from their own experiences working with high-poverty, high-achieving schools to illustrate how to support students with an approach that considers social as well as emotional factors in education.

At the center of people’s lives is the family, which can be and should be a haven from the harshness of the outside world. Unfortunately, the source of people’s greatest hope for happiness often turns out to be the source of their worst disappointments. Now, the family therapist, Salvador Minuchin unravels the knots of family dynamics against the background of his own odyssey from an extended Argentinian Jewish family to his innovative treatment of troubled families. Through the stories of families who have sought his help, the reader is taken inside the consulting room to see how families struggle with self-defeating patterns of behavior. Through his confrontational style of therapy, Dr Minuchin demonstrates the strict but unseen rules that trap family members in stifling roles, and illuminates methods for helping families untangle systems of disharmony. In Dr Minuchin’s therapy there are no villains and no victims, only people trying to deal with various problems at each stage of the family life cycle. Minuchin understands the family as a system of interconnected lives, not as a “dysfunctional” group. Each story of a therapeutic encounter brings a new understanding of familiar dilemmas and classic mistakes, and recounts Dr Minuchin’s creative solutions.

Milton H. Erickson is most commonly examined through the lens of hypnosis. This book takes a much broader approach and defines several key components that made him successful as a therapist. The fundamental strategies described are relevant to all mental health care professionals, regardless of their theoretical orientation.

Can relationships survive when one partner comes out as transgender? For many couples it isn't easy. Adjusting to new realities which present themselves takes time, patience, education, and soul searching. The process can feel scary and isolating. Reaching for Hope offers companionship for the journey in the form of reassurance, support, and strategies, all delivered in bite-sized nuggets, so you won't feel overwhelmed by information. Can your relationship survive? That remains to be seen. But this book offers help, if you're willing to try.

A handbook of help and hope when facing personal tragedy. When the storms of life blow in unexpectedly, wreaking havoc and leaving a trail of destruction, why does one person fall apart while another perseveres and even finds a deeper sense of purpose afterward? In Beyond the Storm, Debra Morton reveals why, providing the techniques and strategies that helped her and many others not only survive but also thrive, even in the most painful of circumstances. While ministering to victims of Hurricane Katrina and grieving the death of her granddaughter, Morton realized that the key to pushing forward in the midst of setbacks was having a defined set of coping skills. So she created the “Storm Playbook,” which teaches how to renew your hope, reclaim your passion, and experience fulfillment and joy again. That playbook is here for you to use immediately, along with interactive tools, journaling questions, and scripture studies that will guide you through pain and struggle and into strength and victory once again. Beyond the Storm is an essential help for flourishing after the devastating effects of life’s blows so you can actively pursue the purpose you were designed to fulfill.

There have been huge advances in our ability to diagnose autism and in the development of effective interventions that can change children’s lives. In this extraordinary book, Lynn Kern Koegel, a leading clinician, researcher, and cofounder of the renowned Autism Research Center at the University of California at Santa Barbara, combines her cutting-edge expertise with the everyday perspectives of Claire LaZebnik, a writer whose experience with a son with autism provides a rare window into the disorder. Together, they draw on the highly effective “pivotal response” approach developed at the center to provide concrete ways of improving the symptoms of autism and the emotional struggles that surround it, while reminding readers never to lose sight of the humor that lurks in the disability’s quirkiness or the importance of enjoying your child. From the shock of diagnosis to the step-by-step work with verbal communication, social interaction, self-stimulation, meltdowns, fears, and more, the answers are here-in a book that is as warm and nurturing as it is authoritative.

Draws on research to offer strategies for adopting a high-hope attitude and shaping a successful future, and provides real-life examples of people who create hope and have changed the lives of their communities.

A moving portrait of school reform in New Orleans through the eyes of the students and educators living it.